If your like me you no doubt carry on and put on a great front for the world to see while deep inside the hurt and fears and loneliness that surround your life and circumstances that created your PTSD, go on unanswered. I wanted help but getting that help meant telling the world (counselors) what happened to me that brought it on. Oh I talked with many counselors about my anxiety and depression but never about what had happened to me as a child. I was a little girl tormented and hurt by those that were suppose to protected me. I was hit and told over and over how dumb I was. And my grandparents and my dad caused so much mental and emotion pain, while my mother was indifferent toward it and me. My entire life was a train wreck that rolled on from an early age and though two marriages, and only now some 60 years later I am finally unlocking that box that has set in my memories gathering dust and looking at the contents hoping to find peace. And so I made that first step by going into counseling and telling each and every sorted detail in hopes that before I am gone that one day the pain and heartache in my PTSD, will disappear for good. This step took a lot of courage because recovering is long process and it means admitting that I am not as strong as I look. It means I need help and that I need to trust someone to listen and untangle the events of my life and help me make sense of it all. Do you ever feel this way? Are you going through counseling? Do you believe that things can get better in your mental and physical existence? Please share your stories and comments below. It would be nice to know someone understands.
A lot of us can hide how we truly feel inside. Most people tell me that I hide my problems well which surprises me. But it is an act that I put on for people. It gets to a point though when I lose my rag and scream and shout and totally lose it. Especially when triggers happen a lot. My heart goes out to you @Sweed1 reading your post, I see that you have suffered similar pains to what I have. I am just starting therapy myself. I'm 53, and like you am still suffering from the effects of a traumatic childhood brought about by people in trust. I have done a bit of research, and am doing more as the days go on. Sadly, I have read over and over that we may suffer all of our lives with the symptoms we have now. I think it is really sad what you went through as a child. You are not dumb at all, and they had no right to hit you. Although the pain may never actually leave you, I can promise you something. It will get easier, as your therapist will help you to deal with it. Digging into each and every nook and cranny, pulling everything out will help. You will learn how to cope, and with coping, you can start to feel happier. I am hoping that will happen with my therapy. I was born out of an incestuous relationship. Then I was adopted. I've been abused sexually, mentally and physically. These people wanted to punish me for how I came into the life! Even though it wasn't my fault, I am a reminder of a bad time. Counselling will help, I promise. Just stick with it and be prepared to go deep and deeper. The important thing is to stay strong. Take your meds, if you are taking any. Listen to subliminal's, because they do help. There is a thread in this Anxiety Forum where we are posting some peaceful subliminal's that you may find a help. Your post puts a lump in my throat because I understand how you are feeling. Yes, I understand! My ex-wicked-stepmother, as I like to call her, used to call me a didicoi because I came out of a children's home. I was there for two years from the age of 4. She would take me out for weekends and then they ended up fostering me full time from the age of 6 until they adopted me at 11. I was so very scared of her. I was already suffering from PTSD and separation anxiety. I used to wet the bed and she would beat me up because of it. She would bang her knuckles on my head saying I'll knock it into that brainbox of yours, and it would really hurt. Her husband sexually abused me and I turned to her for help but she ordered him to cane me for telling lies. There is so much to say, so much pain. My life has been a wreck as well. So reading your post, I do, really feel for you. Continue with your therapy, it will help you to cope. In coping, you will then be able to smile a genuine smile...... Your counsellor is a professional. He or she has spent years studying this subject. It is private what you say to them so you can talk freely. Only by talking you will get healing. Let it out. Let it all out to your therapist. Then listen to him, and do what he says. On one hand, I am not looking forward to my therapy, and on the other hand, I am. It is what I want and what I need. I know it is going to be incredibly hard, but I also know that it will help me to heal. You too Sweed, you will heal at least in the sense of knowing how to deal with it. Your therapist will encourage a new way of thinking. A problem shared, is a problem halved so they say.
I hear you both. It issuch heart breaking to know that the devils actually live among us. They are all dressed up as Angels but those who suffer from them secretly know better. I have worked as a counsellor and so I have heard umpteenth stories related to most hideous abuses. I have seen the victims and their evidences. I feel pain when I hear the story. Trust me when I say counsellors are your real friends. They say it's easier to talk to strangers and yes it is! Open up your hidden world and heart to your counsellors and see and feel how what you thought once as impossible thing happening: happiness entering your life. Freedom from that constant fear and pain. I wish you both joy and peace.
Sweed1 I had no idead what PTSD ws until my PCP caught on to some of the things I was saying, for example I continued to say I was fat and needed diet pills. I have a huge issue on control and being able to control things around me. And what I put in my mouth seemed like the only thing I could control at the time. Anyway long story short over a period of time he realized that it had nothing to do with my weight etc that I had something else going on so he talked to me and referred me to a psychiatrist and 2 years later I am just now slowly (but not completely) opening up. My life was perfect and beautiful before my momma died. She got breast cancer and slowly died over a period of 3 or 4 years. She was uncommonly diagnosed in her late 20s. She slowly and painfully passed away from it but not until the cancer had ate her entire body up. After momma died my dad started drinking and attempted to commit suicide by downing a bottle of pills. I was about 9 or 10 at the time. Me and my little brother found him. I thought he was dying just like my momma of course I was too young to understand. He lied about it in the hospital, but even at that age I knew he was lying to me when he told me he accidentally took the wrong pills. Then after that he became mean and angry and would leave me, my sister and little brother in the house sometimes t days end without food. There were times when the electricity would be disconnected because he never paid the bill. We would have 2 of those buckets that you can put a lid on it (can't remember if they are 10 pound buckets) but anyway we would have rice in one and beans in the other because if we left them in the bags they came in then the rats would eat through the bags. The crappy thing is I would go to school in dirty clothes, unbathed, messy hair and no one noticed. There were no teachers who paid attention when I would put my head down and cry because the other kids made fun of me. No one asked me if everything was okay even thought I would show up with bruises on my face and body. My daddy used us as a punching bag when he came home drunk. We'd have school the next day and when he WOULD be home he would at times wake us all up, make us 3 line up like military style and scream in each of our faces about how much we should be grateful that he hasn't dropped us off somewhere and that if it wasn't for us he would be here or there. There were times where the only meal I got was at school. It was so cold in that trailer in the winter without any heat or lights. And when I went to my daddy and told him what my uncle had done to me he told me to shut the hell up and stop making stories up. I only continued to go to my uncles because my cousin (the one who killed herself by overdosing eventually) was my best friend whom I loved like a sister. So me and my cousin would shove the vacuum cleaner up against the door and we'd take turns keeping watch when the other could sleep. We never spoke out loud about her daddy, my uncle because she was ashamed that her daddy used her like a wife for years. We ended up both leaving home at 15 and ended up drinking every day and getting high. I figured I would have been the one dead first because I was more reckless, but when I got the phone call that they found her dead at 24 and then because of doctor prescribed medication overdose I just couldn't believe. I hate my uncle, I still can't look him in the eyes because he did that, HE KILLED HER in more ways than one. My family is truly messed up. But that is only a small piece of the crap. But as far as the PTSD even though I've never fought in a war I still have flashbacks. Sometimes I can hear my uncle's heavy breathing when he hurt me all those times. When I had no control because I was a little kid. How I used to safety pin my braws together and wearing bagger clothes for years because I thought it was something I was doing or looking like and that I was asking for it. And since my daddy didn't listen to me or stop it then who would. So I strangley react in a child like memory. I go back and I am scared, I am scared because I am too little to fight back. No one believes me anyway. so it just continues for her and me. I want to protect her so I sacrifice to protect my cousin my best friend who I ended up killing because I wasn't there for her. She is buried right above my momma in the same graveyard. I miss her so much. I sometimes wake up in a dreamlike state and still hear her laughing in my dream, then I remember she is no longer here.
Thank you so much for sharing because it makes me feel less alone. My heart goes out to each of you who suffered in your past part of life and I can only pray that you live in peace today. I am doing better but find I like being alone more then getting out and about with others. Sure I can smile and pretend with the best of them when I need to, but often find the energy to go out and have loads of fun wears me out and ruins my mood. If I don't have to perform in silly nonsense and can join in quietly then I don't mind being out, but often it starts out quiet and turns into a crowded loud bunch of fools that brings out me down. Just a thought Eavie, I have always believed that the only way we can safely communicate with loved ones who have died is through dreams of which we have no control. Just to hear their voice or laughter, or being involved in drama's that never happened but seem so real when we are sleeping makes me feel closer to them. So don't be sad when you hear her laughter she is letting you know that she is okay and residing now in peace and happiness.
Hi. Long time no see. I sometimes see my deceased loved ones in my dreams. But, the one person I see a lot is my best friend Kendall. She died in a car wreck in 2006. I miss her . I dream about how we used to be and sometimes in my dreams ...she tells me not to be sad ....that she's happ and that she loves me and wants me to move on. That dream helped. Since then. .. I still miss her but, as weird as this is to say. .I'mean not sad anymore. I think Kendall gave me closer.
